


I defy you, stars

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 2017, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, Frenemies Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson, Future Fic, HE IS AN OVERSIZED MARSHMALLOW FULL OF FEELS I DONT MAKE THE RULES, I actually did not write this after midnight, I fucking love that book, M/M, Memories, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson is So Done, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Stucky - Freeform, Wakanda, gratitious mentions of Brave New World, sam wilson does not like flowers, stand alone fic, t'challa deserves nice things, this is rare, writer inserts own interests into fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7745095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve makes his way through the afternoon throng; past a child selling flowers and an elderly woman weaving a rug under the shade of a wide tent. The colors blend beautifully. Indigo blue with sunflower yellow. Swirls of warm orange rest next to cyan blue in straight lines. It's busy here and that element makes him wish Bucky could experience it too. That particular element reminds him of New York and how it never seemed to sleep. When Bucky wakes he'll take him here. They'll buy bunches of flowers and hold hands without others gawking. They'll be Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes for the first time in decades. Here in this world they'll sleep in on Sundays, they'll kiss one another awake in the morning, they'll fry eggs and visit T'Challa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I defy you, stars

_I defy the stars;_  
_I defy Heaven and Hell._  
_The laws of the universe say that the man I love is lost to me._  
_I say:_  
_Watch me save him._

_He saved me first you know._

[+](http://ballerinawidow.tumblr.com/)

Wakanda is stiflingly hot and crowded. Sweaty bodies litter streets and linger at stands advertising baskets of dry beans and spices. If Steve were younger and asthmatic he wouldn't last a day here but it's a sweltering June 2016 and he's a product of the United States government circa early 1940's. Not that they care for him much these days aside from the need to hunt him down like he's dangerous.

They're not wrong there.

The last two months of his life have been nothing but chaos and routine with no in between. He'd arrived in May with a beaten down and mentally exhausted Bucky after fleeing their own country. Freedom was just another word for control. In the 1940's the two of them had been hailed as heroes. In 2016 they'd became fugitives, criminals. All this because he wanted a better life for Bucky - one that didn't include a battery of tests day after day like he was some sort of mutant experiment gone wrong.

+

Steve makes his way through the afternoon throng; past a child selling flowers and an elderly woman weaving a rug under the shade of a wide tent. The colors blend beautifully. Indigo blue with sunflower yellow. Swirls of warm orange rest next to cyan blue in straight lines. It's busy here and that element makes him wish Bucky could experience it too. It reminds him of New York and how it never seemed to sleep. When Bucky wakes he'll take him here. They'll buy bunches of flowers and hold hands without others gawking. They'll be Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes for the first time in decades. Here in this world they'll sleep in on Sundays, they'll kiss one another awake in the morning, they'll fry eggs and visit T'Challa.

But it has only been one month since Bucky sat on a sterile table with creased forehead and said "I think it's best that I go back under." He'd hesitated before adding "For everyone" which translated to _I'm tired. I can't fight anymore and I don't want to hold you back._ What Steve hadn't told him when they'd rehashed the "Are you sure?" "I have to do this, Steve" circular argument was that he hadn't planned on leaving Wakanda. If he'd told Bucky that, he never would've went back under. As nice as that sounded it would've been hell for Bucky.

After walking for what feels like ages, he arrives at T'Challa's facility. With the press of a button, a facial scan and a barrage of security measures he's allowed to enter. Air conditioning blasts his sweat sticky skin as he walks past long corridors. There is no color here in this place. It consists of sterile whites and grays. It's not a home, it's a facility but happens to be the best part of Wakanda. Within its walls Bucky is safe and alive.

A nurse in crisp white uniform with clipboard in hand stops him midway. "Good afternoon, Steven. His blood pressure briefly lowered half an hour ago but it's stabilized."

He knows every last one of them by name and they're aware of the drill: should anything change with Bucky, inform Rogers.

He smiles warmly at her. She's an excellent nurse and is the only one who refers to him by his given name. He doesn't mind as the last time he'd been referred to as Steven was probably 1942 when Bucky had sharply spoken it to Steve's retreating back. They'd been arguing about the military per usual.

"Thank you, Aisha."

"You're welcome."

She strides past him and stops to jot down a note on the clipboard before continuing.

+

Four transparent doors later he's sinking into the chair next to Bucky's cryo tank. It had been placed there on day two after he'd spent the morning pacing back and forth in front of the vessel. It's the only splash of color in the room but that's not saying much. Its exterior is covered in molded plywood and the inside consists of buttery black leather. It's designed for comfort and appears to have cost a lot. T'Challa had informed him, with a smile, that it was first produced in [1956](http://www.homedit.com/most-comfortable-lounge-chairs/eames-lounge-and-ottoman/). Though he hadn't been around for that era he could appreciate the care put into choosing it.

He pulls out a copy of _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley and begins to read aloud. It's a rare edition from 1932 and used to be one of Bucky's favorite books.

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry. I want real danger, I want freedom. I want sin," he reads.

He can relate to John Savage in this extent. The man had experienced a brand new world outside of his comfort zone and found that it didn't fit right. Though the savage land he'd been raised in was vastly flawed as opposed to the manufactured perfection of the supposedly more civil environment, he missed it. Where he came from men could pray and drink. They could fight and sin. They didn't live under a microscope like ants who forbidden to get out of line. And then John had lost the only woman he'd loved (aside from his mother) because of his own hangups and their glaringly obvious differences. If Lenina was the forbidden fruit then he was the dirt smudged hand reaching up to caress it in hopes that something spectacular might cause the earth to rearrange itself for them.

He'd lost her and himself. He'd left her behind when things got complicated and he couldn't see past his own issues. Afterward h'd tried to make a new life but to no avail. The others from the new world had followed him and watched with fascination as he struggled.

And then, one day, it had happened. She'd arrived with a group of the others and called to him. In a fit of temporary insanity his beloved Lenina was no more and he was to blame. He'd struck her down and hurt himself in the process. 

He hadn't lasted long after her death. The fact that he'd killed her reminded Steve of Bucky's body over his own with fist coming down again and again. If he'd killed Steve that day, he wouldn't have cared. Life was for the living and Steve was no more than a ghost wishing for the impossible. And yet, Bucky had saved him.

He sighs.

How easily the past predicts the future. He flashes back to the feeling of wind whipping hair into his face as he watched Bucky fall from the train, to blaming himself, to pulling a John Savage via ice rather than rope afterward, to waking up in a brand new world that he never found his niche in and repeatedly losing Bucky. His own story varied from the book of course but there were similarities though the future (present, he reminds himself) is less dystopian than he'd expected.

"I'm claiming the right to be unhappy," Steve reads.

In choosing isolation John Savage had been giving himself a chance at a new life, consequences be damned. Steve understands this as well. He'd chosen the same path after Bucky was in cryo.

In the book the controller explains that, in doing this, John is also taking the good with the bad.

His voice comes out hushed, barely above a whisper. "I claim them all."

The good, the bad, an unsteady future all in the name of self preservation. He does this for Bucky, for himself.

That's...that's enough reading, he thinks. It's hitting too close to home, dredging up memories.

He stands and stretches.

"Y'know...while you're sleeping good, I'm out here running on fumes. I've had about 3hrs tops in the past two days. I keep...I dream too much."

The room remains quiet but he continues.

"I think we're savages, Buck. Both of us. We got tossed into a world we didn't really want and when we tried to get out, everything fell apart."

He remembers everything clear as day.

New York in 2012, the tiny apartment SHIELD had provided him with (though they'd filled it with items that were from the '50s at best). The grime and grit of battles. The late nights spent listening to records and modern music because sleeping meant nightmares. The last time he'd held Peggy's hand, the first time he'd felt Bucky's after assuming he'd lost him in 1943. The hellicarrier and waking in a hospital with the first thought being: _He saved me. I have to find him._ Meeting Sam and running laps around him. He was somewhere along the far end of Wakanda now and living a subdued life. He visited the facility frequently though he insisted he was visiting Steve and definitely _not_ Bucky.

Steve remembers the war he'd waged when the country he'd once known and loved tried to take the only good thing in his life: Bucky. Tony's foot kicking Bucky in the face, the heavy weight of Bucky in his arms afterward, the resounding _clang_ of his shield hitting the floor. The stolen jet and Bucky dressed in white. The first week after when he'd cried for three days in a row and the nurses gave him space.

Maybe this world is another planets hell. Maybe waiting is a slow descent into death.

He clears his throat and tugs a pair of thick gloves on.

"If you were awake you'd tell me to stop being so fucking serious," he murmurs as he places both palms on the frigid glass.

"But it's your fault for liking that book so much," he adds.

The silence hangs in the air and he misses that smart mouth of Bucky's so much that his body aches with it.

"So I passed this kid today. She had the biggest brown eyes and carried a basket of flowers. I was thinking we could buy her out of 'em when you wake up. You could even take a bunch to Sam." He chuckles. "He'd love that. We could even tie a big bow around them."

In their short time together Bucky and Sam had automatically became frenemies. Their conversations had been filled with snark and sarcasm. It was actually pretty amusing to see.

He traces the lines of Bucky's face through the glass and leans his forehead against it.

"Hey, remember when you missed an entire week of school 'cause I had pneumonia? You were pretty proud of your fib. _I slept in too late._ Still a lousy excuse for a lie, Buck. _But_ you almost got away with it 'till she called your ma in."

For seven days Bucky had trekked back and forth from his apartment to Steve's with comic books, thick slices of homemade bread that his mother had made, a bag of marbles, baseball cards. He'd grabbed whatever he could find and had stuffed his pockets full.

God he misses that.

Now Bucky is the one in need of comfort and he doesn't have much to offer.

On days like this he misses the ice. He'd dreamed up a life for them within its walls. In it, the war had ended and they'd made it back home to the NY they'd left behind. He'd had girls hanging off of him but turned them all down, said he had a gal already. Dream Bucky had found that both amusing and worthy of an eye roll because _Don't know if you've noticed, pal, but I'm no dame._ He'd laughed into Bucky's mouth as they'd kissed then. In 1946 he'd taken Bucky to see the World Series (with good seats because being Captain America had its perks) and every science convention that had popped up in the NY Times. At night they'd curl around one another and Bucky would mumble about how _he_ used to be the big spoon.

They could have that when Bucky woke, he decided. He'd finally put it out there: _I love you I love you I love you. Sorry I almost waited too late._ Surely Bucky felt the same. The few stolen moments they'd had together in the year prior were proof of that.

Never-mind the details, they'd adapt. And the good thing about living in the future: he could hold Bucky's hand in public. That almost made everything worth it. His eyesight blurs with unshed tears and he clears his throat once more.

"Hey...there's this lady who makes rugs that look like art. You'd love them. I'm gonna buy us one when you wake up."

The glass quickly cools his forehead and he shivers. Back to the chair it is. Only this time he chooses to silently read Bucky's journal. Within its pages lives a world in sepia tones and it paints vivid snapshots of their life together. He has read it at least ten times. Only twice has he read the gruesome pages with their assassinations and decades of torture that makes Steve cry and want to hit something at the same time.

Page 32:

_Took Steve to a baseball game. Couldn't afford it, made a deal with Timothy?? Thomas?? at work for tickets. Took a double shift. Steve's heart acted up when we got there, walked really slow. 194_??_

+

June 2017.

"Flowers. You bought me **flowers**. What the hell, Barnes?"

Bucky smirks. " 'least you could do is mention the bow. Steve chose the color and everything."

Sam glowers.

"Why."

They're standing in Sam's apartment with its cozy touches and the smell of hamburgers frying on the stove. As usual they're having Friday night dinner together. They alternate between his apartment and theirs.

Steve proudly holds out a book. "AND!"

"What's this?"

Bucky perks up and begins to ramble on about the book and how much it means to him. How the central theme is a civilization where human beings are treated as product and two worlds exist in one place but they're-

He rambles.

Sam stops him halfway. "I don't read science fiction."

Bucky smirks. "You do now."

They couldn't just buy him a balloon and cake for his birthday like normal people, no. He doesn't even _like_ this genre. He flips the book over and reads as he speaks.

"Y'know what? You're getting a book about sentient household products when your birthday rolls around, old man."

"Oh you're an author now?," Bucky teases.

Hardy har har.

"I have read that book," T'Challa replies as he sautes vegetables. Hes got the place smelling like spices and garlic, delicious.

The sentient household products book?

How.

Why.

"What?," Steve asks.

"Huxley," T'Challa states.

So not the other one then. Sam is almost positive that it doesn't exist but somewhere in the world it's probably being penned. People will write about _anything_.

Bucky's eyes light up and he practically drags T'Challa into the other room to pick the book apart. Finally, someone who can match his passion for science fiction. He can get off of Sam's back with his nonsense.

Steve flips the burgers as Sam rummages for a vase. He hates flowers.

He fills it with water and places it in the center of his small kitchen table. He spends two minutes arranging them.

Hates them.

He'll never read that book, not ever.

**Page 1.**

_A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY._

One chapter, that's **it**. Not one page more.

Twenty minutes later the others gather around the table and chatter about something-something future of cryogenics and Eames chairs.

**Chapter 3.**

+

 _All night I stretched my arms across him singing with all my skin and bone:_  
_Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors_  
_swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces._  
_Make a cathedral, him pressing against me._  
_His lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven._  
[Richard Siken]

+

Mornings are Steve's favorite. He wakes to kisses along the nape of his neck and a cool vibranium arm wrapping around his waist as Bucky pulls him closer. Back to chest.

On this particular Sunday they sleep in until nearly six a.m. then drowsily argue over how to properly fry an egg. Steve's method is wrong or so Bucky has said at least three times.

 

_"The yolks not supposed to be hard, Steve."_

_"Fine we'll have boiled eggs from now on."_

_"NO. Never again."_

_Steve began to recite, in a sing song voice: boiled eggs, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes._

_Bucky had groaned and tried to show him the right way. Go figure, Captain America can fling motorcycles but couldn't fry an egg if his life depended upon it._

 

Outside of the kitchen window, the sun rises in Wakanda. It paints the sky in gold and orange.

Having given up on trying to rescue the butchered eggs, Bucky scrapes his fork along his plate. They're truly pathetic but he's not one to waste food. 

Steve ignores his in favor of admiring one of many breathtakingly beautiful things that make Wakanda feel like home.

"We're buying a rug today," he states.

Bucky takes a bite of buttered toast and chews as he speaks.

"Why?"

"Because I told you I would."

"When?"

He'd meant to buy it over a year ago but life had rushed on by and he'd forgotten. They'd bought at least four bunches of flowers from the little girl with a basket and big brown eyes at least.

The sunrise remembers.

"When you were sleeping."

Bucky takes a drink of coffee and pauses, placing it on the table.

" _STEVEN._ You promised me you wouldn't stick around. You were supposed to make a life for yourself, not _this_."

He gestures at himself and the remains of a mangled breakfast.

Steve reaches across the table and closes his hand around Bucky's.

He'd waited so long for this messy, argumentative and stubborn life, this man. He wouldn't change a thing. No regrets.

"I was waiting for my best guy."

Bucky visibly softens. His eyes reflect a mixture of sadness and the purest deepest love. He remembers a burning building and screaming _NO NOT WITHOUT YOU!_ Steve had carried those words with him apparently.

He draws in a shaky breath. "Okay Steve. Okay. We'll go buy a rug. But first."

Bucky takes him by the hand and leads them back to the bedroom.

This world is theirs for the taking.

**Author's Note:**

> lots of rambling notes:  
> you can read brave new world here for free http://www.huxley.net/bnw and I highly recommend it if you like dystopian societies where emotions are controlled by outward forces. it's a book that will really make you think, I love it. it really was published in 1932.
> 
> also I took liberties with sam's birthday because I wanted a parallel of June 2016 vs. June 2017 and how quickly things can change. 
> 
> disclaimer: john savage and steve do have things in common but, by no means, is steve nearly the same person as him. 
> 
> title is from romeo and juliet by shakespeare because he's quoted a lot by john savage in BNW and it pretty much sums up steve + bucky. 
> 
> yes they're morning people. I know, I know. they can't possibly be human. 
> 
> lastly I LOVE the idea of t'challa cooking and chilling with the guy whose life he saved (and steves, by proxy). he deserves friends and cozy dinners for 4.
> 
> *cackles* I HAVE WRITTEN STUCKY AGAIN


End file.
